With an handful of exceptions, every Republican member of
Congress has signed a pledge against increasing taxes. Would allowing
the Bush tax cuts to expire as scheduled in 2012 violate this vow? We
posed this question to Grover Norquist, its author and enforcer, and his
answer was both surprising and encouraging: No.

In other words, according to Mr. Norquist's interpretation of the
Americans for Tax Reform pledge, lawmakers have the technical leeway to
bring in as much as $4 trillion in new tax revenue -- the cost of
extending President George W. Bush's tax cuts for another decade --
without being accused of breaking their promise. "Not continuing a tax
cut is not technically a tax increase," Mr. Norquist told us. So it
doesn't violate the pledge? "We wouldn't hold it that way," he said.

ATR opposes all tax increases on the American people.
Any failure to extend or make permanent the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003,
in whole or in part, would clearly increase taxes on the American
people.

So he's against this $4 trillion tax increase--but his tax pledge,
strictly speaking, doesn't rule it out. That does seem strange. What is
it about "oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income
tax rate" that I am failing to understand? Signatories of the pledge
have promised not to reduce tax deductions (expenditures) by so much as
one net dollar. But they haven't promised to stop marginal rates
returning to pre-Bush levels, which would raise a net $4 trillion. On
what planet does that make sense?

Norquist's pledge would seem to be a pretty incompetent piece of
work, from his own point of view. But look, that's fine. We need the
extra revenues.

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